Daily TIP

The Daily TIP: TIP CEO: As Assad Prepares His Final Assault, Israel Has Done Its Best to Protect Syrians

Posted by Tip Staff - September 14, 2018

TIP CEO: As Assad Prepares His Final Assault, Israel Has Done Its Best to Protect SyriansWatchdog Ranks Israel Among Nations with Most Effective Anti-Bribery EnforcementTIP Spokesman: By Closing PLO Office, U.S. Told Palestinians "The Double Game is Over"Israeli Startup That Developed Accident Avoidance System for Motorcycles Raises $2.5 Million

TIP CEO: As Assad Prepares His Final Assault, Israel Has Done Its Best to Protect Syrians

Israel has played a central role in alleviating the suffering of Syria’s civilian population, often at great risk to their own, Joshua S. Block., CEO & President of The Israel Project, wrote in an op-ed published in the Washington Examiner on Wednesday. His comments come at a time when the Syrian regime and Russia are preparing the final assault on the last remaining rebel-stronghold in Idlib.

“What set out as a strict survival policy in Syria, to contain the influence of Iran and Hezbollah, has over the years evolved into a multifaceted strategy to meet Israel’s security needs and ease the unimaginable suffering of Syria’s civilians,” Block wrote.

Israel’s main strategic goal in Syria is to contain the influence of Iran and its proxy Hezbollah, as well as to prevent an Iranian land bridge — a continuous, unimpeded route over land from Tehran to the Mediterranean Sea.

He noted, however, that besides enforcing its security interests, the Jewish State also “forged genuine partnerships with aid organizations on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights and launched an unprecedented campaign to ease the suffering of Syrian civilians — despite the fact that Israel and Syria remain officially at war.”

Over 5,000 wounded Syrians have been treated by the Jewish State since 2013 and thousands more received aid through “Operation Good Neighbor.” Block also referenced the daring rescue mission the IDF undertook in July, when they evacuated members of the White Helmets, and their families, from southwestern Syria into Jordan.

He concluded: “As the world prepares for the worst in Idlib — including another likely chemical weapons attack — the sight of innocents being gassed to death is felt by many Israelis, and the Jewish people,” adding “My hope is that Syrians will at least know and remember who stood with them in their struggle, and those who did not.”

Watchdog Ranks Israel Among Nations with Most Effective Anti-Bribery Enforcement

According to watchdog group, Transparency International (TI), Israel ranks as one of the nations most effective in enforcing anti-bribery laws, Globes reported Wednesday.

According to TI, in the three years since it issued its last report, Israel has gone from lowest ranking in fighting bribery to the highest.

While Israel has made it criminal to bribe public officials in 2008, it only started prosecuting such cases over the past two years.

Enforcement of the anti-bribery law is carried out by Israel's State's Attorney office in conjunction with representatives from Israel Police, Israel Tax Authority, and Israel Money Laundering and Terror Financing Prohibition Authority in the Ministry of Justice, according to Globes. Investigations are carried out by a unit called Lahav 433, with the Israeli Police's National Fraud Squad and are handled by the Tel Aviv District Attorney's office.

The first bribery case that Israel was credited with prosecuting was against NIP Nikuv International Projects, which admitted to paying a $500,000 to secure an NIS 33 million ($9.2 million) deal with Lesotho. The company was penalized NIS 4.5 million ($1.26 million).

The ranking puts Israel in a class with the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, Switzerland, and Norway, The Times of Israel reported. TI classifies these seven nations, who account for 27% of global exports, as "active" enforcers of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) 1997 Anti-Bribery Convention.

TIP Spokesman: By Closing PLO Office, U.S. Told Palestinians "The Double Game is Over"

In an interview with Chris Ingram of News Talk Florida, Kenneth Bricker, The Israel Project's Senior Press Associate, characterized the Trump administration's recent decision to close the PLO offices as a message to the Palestinian Authority, which has refused to negotiate with Israel in recent years, that "the double game is over."

Bricker explained that the PA's leadership has, during the past four years, "abandoned" any pretense of negotiating peace with Israel, as required by the Oslo Accords.

By closing the PLO offices in Washington, the Trump administration was "pushing back," and telling the PA that "the double game is over.”

He described the PA's "pay to slay" program, where the families of jailed terrorists are given lifetime stipends. The amount of the stipend corresponds to the length of the sentence, and thus to the severity of the crime. This payment scheme incentivizes terror, as it pays greater rewards to terrorists who are convicted of murder.

An organization that pays rewards to terrorists, Bricker observed, "is not an organization that is committed to peace," rather it "is an organization that sponsors terror."

"For years the Palestinians have had it both ways," Bricker said. "They've been treated with international diplomatic status on the one hand, by the West, for participating in this peace process, while actually engaging in terror and not sincerely negotiating."

The administration has made it clear to the PA that if it supports terror and refuses negotiations, "there will be consequences."

Israeli Startup That Developed Accident Avoidance System for Motorcycles Raises $2.5 Million

As the race heats up toward the launch of autonomous vehicles, state-of-the-art technologies like ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) are being designed to prevent collisions. But motorcycles have been largely overlooked in the process.

According to a 2018 US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report, fatalities in traffic crashes occur nearly 28 times more frequently for motorcycles than for passenger car occupants, and motorcycle drivers comprise 17 percent of all driver- and passenger-related fatalities. There were 5,286 fatal motorcycle crashes in 2016 in the US, a 5.1 percent increase from 2015, according to NHTSA.

Uri Lavi and Lior Cohen are avid motorcycle riders who want to bring computer safety smarts to two-wheelers. Their company Ride Vision just raised a $2.5 million seed round from YL Ventures for its patented CAT (Collision Aversion Technology) for motorcycles.

ADAS generally uses a combination of radar, LIDAR, high-tech cameras and sensors to prompt an autonomous vehicle to self-correct or warn a driver of a potential collision. But all that equipment is expensive – fine for a pricey new car, but over budget for motorcycles.

Lavi and Cohen decided to use standard off-the-shelf cameras enhanced by software to provide ADAS-level protection for two-wheelers. Low-cost cameras work for motorcycles because cyclists typically avoid riding in bad weather conditions, so there’s less need for the kind of advanced sensors that work in heavy snow and rain.

In a typical Ride Vision configuration, two small cameras (no larger than 2.5×2.5 cm each) are mounted on the front and back of the motorcycle. The cameras have wide angles – Ride Vision’s current prototype is 175 degrees – so when combined, the two devices provide nearly 360-degree vision.